This invention relates generally to movement of bed-ridden persons, and more particularly concerns apparatus and method of assisting a person to move from a bed to a wheelchair, and back. The invention enables a nursing home or hospital attendant, or a family member, to provide such assistance safely, without hurting the patient, and with a minimum of physical effort by the assisting person, consistent with the avoidance of use of electric or other external power.
A large and steadily growing number of infirm or ill people need assistance to be moved between bed and wheelchair. In an institution such as a nursing home, a number of people will likely have to be moved one or more times per day, to a dining room, to a bathroom, for bed-sore prevention, or simply to provide the patient a change from lying in bed. Institutional routine will often make it desirable to move a number of patients at nearly the same time, as to a meal.
The present standard moving procedure is for the assistant first to grasp the patient (who is initially lying in bed) and assist the patient to a sitting position on the side of the bed, from which the patient can be carried or otherwise assisted to the nearby wheelchair.
The present procedure has several drawbacks:
1. It may take two strong assistants to move a heavy patient.
2. The patient could be dropped or otherwise mishandled.
3. Even with careful handling, the fragile, parchment-like skin of an old patient can be torn or abraded by the grasping process which is part of this procedure.
Because of the disadvantages of the standard, manual patient-assist procedure, and because of the apparent present lack of a convenient, cost-effective patient-mover, there is a clear need for a patient mover which materially improves the reliability and ease of assisted transport of an infirm patient. Above all, it is important for the new patient mover to be safe to use--for it to work without injuring the patient (or assistant). Also, it should function with a minimum of discomfort or inconvenience to the patient, and made afforadable.